Google Makes It Easy(er) To Put Courses Online

When the Internet first went public you had to create web pages by hand coding html files. To create a video game, you had to code everything by hand. To create 3d models you had to input points into the computer by hand. It was all a very laborious process. I know because I have done all three. Over time however, the process gets automated and tools evolve to make creation more accessible to everyone.

So with this in mind I find it interesting that Google is making some curriculum creation tools available for teachers to put their courses online. They have been around for about a year but now they are connecting with some MOOCs online including EDx.

Google is joining forces with edX, a collaboration of 29 top universities offering 72 online courses, to build an open source online education platform. The new platform, called Open edX, will allow anyone—from universities, to corporations, to individuals—to build and host online courses of their own making.

The new platform will be rolled out on a site called MOOC.org in early 2014, and anyone interested in creating their own course can get instructions and tools developed by Open edX. But they won’t be limited to Open edX tools. It is open source, after all.